Cover A guest walking through the bamboo installation (Photo: Andrea D’Altoe)
A guest walking through the bamboo installation (Photo: Andrea D’Altoe)
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Discover more about the exhibition in Italy by curators Domingo, Funk, and Architecture Collective that will run until November 26
Water has always been an essential resource—a necessity. In linguistics and literature, it means a variety of things: purity, fertility and life. But for the architects, Sam Domingo and Choie Funk, and the exhibitor Architecture Collective (TAC), water in a city’s blueprint means so much more than that.
By highlighting estuaries, more locally known as the estero which is the mouth of a river where freshwater streams meet saltwater tides from the bay, the curators give a spotlight through an exhibition on the enmeshment of Filipino communities in waterways and how it negatively impacts the water’s health. The putrid muck amassed by the local people along Tripa de Gallina (translated as “guts of the rooster”) impedes conversation. The estuary remains silent. The people are stuck. The kinships are now ultimately muddled. According to the people behind the project, “Just as murky as the waters are in the estuary, so are the settlers’ relationships.”
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Titled Tripa de Gallina: Guts of Estuary and located at the National Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, the exhibit diagnoses the water’s condition and a prognosis of the people’s future.
Above Tripa de Gallina: Guts of Estuary (Photo: Andrea D’Altoe)
Tripa de Gallina: Guts of Estuary (Photo: Andrea D’Altoe)
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In a procedure of modular urban acupuncture materialised by a bamboo structure that serves as a place of gathering and investigation, the Pavilion inspects the estuary’s guts: a flawed ecology of humans, waters, and dregs.
The installation aims for a symbiotic recovery instead of human superiority over other entities. Its message necessitates forsaking hostility and inviting hospitality. The curators and TAC especially hope to create a space that offers an opportunity for the residents of the estuaries to gather, prompting more care and collaboration towards one another and their surroundings.
Above Lashing the bamboo (Photo: Andrea D’Altoe)
Lashing the bamboo (Photo: Andrea D’Altoe)
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“Through the exhibition, the world will have the opportunity to understand the realities faced by Filipinos and realise that this issue is something that they too are facing, potentially cultivating more in-depth and meaningful discussions that lead to collective action and a more sustainable future,” shares National Commission of Culture and the Arts Chair and Philippine Pavilion Commissioner Victorino Mapa Manalo.
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Above Guests of the Philippine Pavilion view the center projection showing the current state of Tripa de Gallina (Photo: Andrea D’Altoe)
Guests of the Philippine Pavilion view the center projection showing the current state of Tripa de Gallina (Photo: Andrea D’Altoe)
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The Philippine participation at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition–La Biennale di Venezia is a collaborative undertaking of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), and the Office of Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda. It opened last May 18 and will run until November 26 in Venice, Italy.
The Pavilion is accessible through its digital programs and virtual tours. To learn more about this, visit philartsvenicebiennale.org. See updates on Facebook and Instagram via @philartsvenice for other information.
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Angela Nicole Regis Guiral is the assistant digital editor of Tatler Philippines. She studied journalism and has since written features that look closely at how culture, lifestyle and social impact converge, while occasionally wandering into the worlds of style and travel.
